Tag Archives: public speaking disasters

Answering questions during or after a presentation can be stressful, and sometimes it’s hard to even hear what you’re being asked. If there’s a language problem, if you’re not sure what you’ve heard, or if you need a few seconds to invent an answer, there’s no shame in asking for the question to be repeated. Otherwise you might end up talking about something like getting rid of vampires in tennis, as Latvian tennis player Ernests Gulbis did at Wimbledon this week.

In case you’re wondering, he’s against vampires, but for “freedom of choice.”

There are certain events for which you should always have a few prepared comments at hand. They’re the kinds of situations where there’s a good chance that you’ll be asked to say a couple of words and where there are often powerful emotions involved that make impromptu thinking difficult. If you’re the guest of honor at a party (think birthdays, anniversaries and retirements) you need to be prepared to thank everyone. If you’re at a wedding where you’re close to at least one of the people getting married you should have something nice to say about the couple. And if you’re nominated for an award you have to have some kind of acceptance speech ready to go, no matter how unlikely you think it is you’ll win. Because you don’t want to sound like Jacqueline Bisset at the Golden Globes on Sunday.

That doesn’t mean you need a long script. In fact, trying to read or recite a long speech is often a total disaster. A couple of heartfelt or funny sentences are usually all it takes to make a great impression. If Ms. Bisset had simply said, “Thank you so much. I guess that Most Promising Newcomer nomination 47 years ago finally makes sense now!” she would have earned a big laugh. Instead, she said this:

(Sigh) God. (Lip smack.) (Laugh.) Um, I think it was 47 years ago that the Hollywood Foreign Press gave me, promising, a nomination for the Holl-uh, Promising Newcomer!!! (Sigh) Thank you very much, Hollywood Foreign Press. I’m absolutely shaken. I can’t believe this. God knows you’ve nominated me about five times I think, anyway. (Sigh) (Lip smack) (Lip smack) (Sigh) OK! Scottish background to the front! OK! Um, I always wanted to do something for the BBC. And we did this. And this was great. Chiwetel, where are you? Can I see Chiwetel? I need him for inspiration. Where is he? OK. We had a good cast, didn’t we? It was great. Starz thank you for putting this on and, uh, (lip smack) thank you to my British agent, Steve Kenis, and my American agent, Harry Abrams. (Music begins) I…I’m sorry, I’m gonna get this together! I want to thank the people who’ve given me joy and there have been many! The people who’ve given me shit, I say, like my mother, what did she say? She used to say, “Go to hell and don’t come back.” However, however, however, my mother was not entirely me. I (laughs) believe if you wanna look good, you’ve got to forgive everybody. You have to forgive everybody. It’s the best beauty treatment. Forgiveness for yourself and for the others. (Blows a kiss) I love my friends, I love my family, and you’re so kind! Thank you so much! (Giggles) Thank you!

After getting confused about which part of the script he was reading from the teleprompter, Bay fumbled around and was unable to recover. Trying to help, his co-presenter gave him an opportunity to ad lib by asking, “Tell us what you think,” but Bay was so dependent on the prepared script that he was totally lost. “I’m sorry,” he said as he walked off stage.

Here’s how he later described what happened:

Wow! I just embarrassed myself at CES – I was about to speak for Samsung for this awesome Curved 105-inch UHD TV. I rarely lend my name to any products, but this one is just stellar. I got so excited to talk, that I skipped over the Exec VP’s intro line and then the teleprompter got lost. Then the prompter went up and down – then I walked off. I guess live shows aren’t my thing.

Unfortunately, the temptation to script live events ruins far too many presentations. Scripts get lost, notes get shuffled, unexpected events interrupt a speaker’s train of thought and they can’t get back on track. While I encourage everyone to write out their presentations as an exercise in working through their thoughts, it’s almost always a bad idea to depend on a script in order to deliver your talk. There are just too many things that can go wrong, and very few of us are good at memorizing or reading a speech in a way that will actually engage an audience.

If you’re giving a talk, it’s your job to know the material well enough that you can speak with a few notes or an outline to remind you where you’re going. And you need to be willing to improvise a little when things don’t go as planned. For example, if you’re the director of Transformers and you’re asked what you think of the giant TV you’re standing next to, say something like: “That TV is huge! Explosions, robots, and exploding robots will look great on that thing!”

It’s always nice to see someone get a chance at redemption, and Marissa Powell got hers this morning on The Today Show. Asked the same question she famously flubbed over the weekend, she did much better when she just gave a straightforward answer (just as I had suggested). Once she can drop the trappings of the pageant she also seems much more natural and charming.

Think about how you can apply this lesson in your own presentations. Can you get rid of the formalities (slides, script, lectern) and just talk to people? Chances are your audience will like you better and you’ll be more effective.

I think we can relate this back to education, and how we are … continuing to try to strive to [long pause] figure out how to create jobs right now. That is the biggest problem. And I think, especially the men are … um … seen as the leaders of this, and so we need to try to figure out how to create educate better so we can solve this problem. Thank you.

Honestly, I don’t think this answer comes close to taking the crown from Miss Teen South Carolina. How could it when Miss Utah doesn’t even manage to work “the Iraq” into her response? But it’s still pretty incoherent and a great opportunity for us to feel superior.

So what do we have to thank for these entertaining disasters that wind up being the most memorable events of these overblown pageants? The contestants are young and probably don’t have much experience speaking in front of an audience–anxiety is almost certainly an issue. But a big part of the problem is that they are over-prepared. Just like a political candidate, every pageant contestant has a platform. So, instead of just honestly answering the questions they are given, they do their best to work in their platform agenda while trying to sound smart and smile in a way which won’t make their lips stick to their teeth. It’s a tragedy waiting to happen. What do you want to bet that Powell’s platform had something to do with education (which, ironically, would have been the best angle for Caitlin Upton to have used)?

It may have been years since your last beauty pageant, but there’s still a lesson here for all of us. If you find yourself taking questions during a presentation, do your best to answer them in an honest and straightforward way. Audiences are quite adept at detecting bullshit and will quickly turn on a presenter who they see as dishonest or phony. Most of us just aren’t quick enough to speak and spin at the same time.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t prepare answers for questions you can anticipate, especially when you’re talking about emotionally fraught topics. Just deal with them honestly and don’t try to pigeonhole the answers to fit your own agenda. Always remember that if you want your presentations to be successful they need to meet the needs of your audience, not your own.